On a recent afternoon, Jim Rich, the editor in chief of The Daily News, sat at his computer playing around with front-page headlines, a few well-chosen words that would capture the day’s biggest news: Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary.

In a few minutes, he had what he thought was a promising candidate: “CRAZY, STUPID LOVE.”

Mr. Rich walked it out into the newsroom for feedback. The paper’s copy chief, Jon Blackwell, proposed an alternative: “I’M WITH STUPID!”

A designer set the phrase over a pair of photographs of Mr. Trump and Ms. Palin, pointing at each other. The image was soon rolling off the presses in New Jersey and going viral on Facebook and Twitter.

It was the latest in a series of attention-grabbing covers that have shifted the conversation around the struggling paper. Just a few months ago, after an aborted sale and sweeping layoffs, The News seemed to have completed its devolution from the model of a big-city tabloid to a battered symbol of the diminished state of America’s newspapers. But the recent string of covers, which were all widely shared on social media, have sent a very different message — if not about the paper’s long-term financial prospects, then at least about its continuing cultural relevance.

Put another way, Mr. Rich, a News veteran who took over the paper in October, seems determined to make sure that the tabloid that famously shamed President Ford for abandoning New York in its time of need will at least go down swinging.

William Holiber, the chief executive, who was seated nearby, said, “The mentality is that we definitely have nothing to lose, so let’s just go for it.”

The News has certainly been going for it, most notably with its provocative front page after December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS,” read the headline, accompanied by screen-grabs of tweets from a variety of conservative politicians offering “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims. The next day, the cover of The News identified the head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, as a terrorist.

Gun control has been an important issue for The News since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, and the paper, which has long identified itself as the voice of New York City’s working class, has a rich history of championing particular causes. But even by tabloid standards, this was unusually pointed rhetoric.

Predictably, the News was denounced on the right and celebrated on the left for the way it chose to frame the story. But whatever one made of the paper’s San Bernardino covers, they demonstrated that the front-page headline — “the wood,” in tab-speak — can still pack a punch, even if most readers are encountering it on their smartphones. Like popular video clips from Jimmy Fallon or John Oliver, The News’s covers are finding a new set of viewers on a different platform. The art of tabloid headline writing may yet outlive the tabloid. (“How The New York Daily News Became Twitter’s Tabloid,” read a recent headline in New York magazine.)

“As someone who’s been at this in one form or another for quite a while, it’s surreal to think that 99 percent of the millions of people who will look at our Page 1 on a given day will actually never hold the paper in their hands,” said Mr. Rich.

The news has cooperated with The News’s efforts to attract notice. A vocal champion of immigrants’ rights, the paper has had a field day with Mr. Trump — “he makes it easy,” said Mr. Rich — as well as Ted Cruz, who committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing the city. The candidate’s attack on Mr. Trump’s “New York values” produced the headline “DROP DEAD, TED,” alongside an image of the Statue of Liberty raising a middle finger to Mr. Cruz. Even Rupert Murdoch, the owner of The News’s bitter tabloid rival, The New York Post, provided good fodder with his recent engagement to the former supermodel Jerry Hall. “BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,” blared the next day’s front page, with a photo of the couple. (“Low-hanging fruit,” Mr. Rich said of the Murdoch cover.)

These covers can now reach more people than they ever did on the newsstand. The problem is that readers don’t have to pay to see them. For all of the attention The News’s recent front pages have drawn, it’s unlikely that they — or perhaps anything — can rescue the paper from its precarious financial position. It’s a familiar story. The News’s circulation has been plummeting for years; it sits at about 241,000 on weekdays. It seems far-fetched to imagine that the paper will ever capture enough digital advertising to offset the declining revenue from its shrinking print base.

The News, which was founded nearly 100 years ago, loses millions of dollars a year. When its owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, tried to sell the paper early last year, interest was light. One of the small handful of prospective buyers was John A. Catsimatidis, a supermarket billionaire who spent $11 million in a long-shot mayoral campaign two years ago. Six rumor-soaked months after putting the paper on the market, Mr. Zuckerman took it off. The layoffs, which claimed dozens of reporters, came soon after in September.

Newsroom morale seems to have improved somewhat since those dark days. This is partly a credit to Mr. Rich, whom colleagues describe as easygoing and accessible. In contrast to the series of British-style tabloid editors who preceded him, Mr. Rich grew up in a working-class suburb of New York, reading The News and The Post. He came to the newspaper business late, after dropping out of Westchester Community College and working his way through a series of odd jobs, including installing home alarm systems. He landed at The News as the deputy Sunday sports editor in 2004 and rose steadily through the paper’s ranks.

Mr. Rich’s predecessor, Colin Myler, the Fleet Street-trained former editor of News of the World, increased the tabloid’s focus on celebrities, which succeeded in generating more web traffic but struck many as a betrayal of the paper’s more high-minded, if populist, legacy. “We felt we lost who we were to some extent,” said Mr. Holiber, adding that The News had come too closely to resemble The Post.

Under Mr. Rich, the paper is showing some signs of moving in a new direction, or rather an old one, returning to its roots as a crusading tabloid. In October, The News created a new “long-form” reporting and editing unit largely dedicated to exploring social issues.

And, of course, there are those covers. Whether they represent a fleeting gift from an unusually generous news cycle, a great tabloid’s final bloom, or, just maybe, the beginning of a rebirth is anyone’s guess.

“Who knows what’s going to happen in three years,” said Mr. Rich. “We’re fighting like hell to succeed, and I believe in my heart that we will, but whether that’s the case or not, we are going to go at this with everything we’ve got.”